Monday, March 28, 2011

Welcome to the first of a series of blogs to help you become a better HoN player. If you have some concept of the game, you can most likely skip the introduction.

So what is Heroes of Newerth? HoN is a game descended from Defense of the Ancients (more commonly referred to as DotA), a Warcraft 3 custom game. A game of strategy, micro management, and above all, teamwork. Let's jump right into it.

The Game Modes

The game mode decides how each players pick their heroes.

All-Pick: All heroes will be available and all players will have one minute to choose their heroes. There is no picking order.

Random Draft: 20 random heroes will be on screen and each player will have 40 seconds to choose their heroes. Picking order is 1-2-2 for the side picking first and 2-2-1 for the side picking second.

Single Draft: Each player will be given a choice of three heroes, one of each type (Agility, Intelligence, and Strength) and have two minutes to complete the picks.

Banning Draft: Similar to Random Draft, except in this mode a captain from each side will take turns banning a hero until 4 bans have been completed. Also, the pool consists of 8 Agility heroes, 8 Intelligence heroes, and 8 Strength heroes instead of 20 random heroes. After the bans have been completed, the picks continue the same as Random Draft. The side that banned first will also pick first.

Banning Pick: Similar to All Pick, except in this mode a captain from each side will take turns banning a hero until 8 bans have been completed. After the bans have been completed, the picks will continue the same as Random Draft, except from a pool of all the heroes (minus the bans, of course).

*In All-Pick, you can choose to random a hero and you will receive an extra 250 starting gold for your boldness.
**In any case where a player does not pick a hero in the allotted time, that player will be forced to random.

The Map

Each team starts with five players on each side. The team is divided into the Legion or the Hellborne. There are no inherent benefits to being on either side as the map is a mirror (for the most part).

The following is a list of important areas of the map you should familiarize yourself with.

The Spawn Locations: The Legion's spawn is the bottom left corner and the Hellborne's is the top right corner. This is where your hero will appear at the beginning of the game and after he has resurrected from a death.

The Towers: Towers do a large amount of damage and has a big health pool and a good amount of armor. Your team must take the opposing team's towers down to gain access into their base. Towers get progressively stronger the closer you get to the enemy's base.

The Barracks: After three towers in one lane have been destroyed, you can attack the enemies' barracks. Once the barracks have been taken down, it will dramatically increase the HP, armor, and damage of the creep waves that spawn from your base. It is favorable to attack the melee barracks first because there are more melee creeps than there are ranged creeps. Once all three sets of barracks have been taken out, it is essentially game over as you will begin spawning Mega Creeps - and they do an incredible amount of damage, enough to take down heroes very quickly.

The Thrones: Popularized by the DotA term "throne", they represent the core of your base and simply put, once they die - you lose. The thrones are only attackable after the enemy team has taken down 4 towers in the same lane and both of the towers guarding the throne. Legion's throne is called the World Tree and the Hellborne's the Sacrificial Shrine. Destroying the enemy player's throne is ultimately the goal of the game.

Kongor: A 7500 HP beast at base level, Kongor is a neutral creep that either side is able to attack and kill. He gets progressively stronger (every 30 seconds) as the game goes by, increasing his HP, damage, and armor. Once killed, he drops a Token of Life and starting from the third time he is killed also drops a Banana. Token of Life is bound on pick up and will resurrect the owner following a death on the same spot after a three second resurrection timer. It lasts 10 minutes (same as Kongor's respawn time from the second he is killed). Bananas heal your HP for 2500 and restore 1000 mana.

Secret Shops: Here, you can purchase items that you cannot purchase at the base shop.

Side Shops: The convenient side shops allow you to purchase items while still in lane.